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| NAA mediaXchange is the largest annual gathering of industry executives in North America, offering unprecedented networking opportunities that combine an exchange of information and ideas with programming designed to generate results. The conference is designed to provide valuable ideas and insights to help newspaper professionals grow audience and revenue for their print and digital products. Sessions highlight leading-edge thinking about media strategies, successes in product and revenue development, new ideas and innovation inside and outside the industry, and tactics and techniques to employ in print and digital. |
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March 2011 - Posts
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By Fernando Valdes
The "Newspaper Labs Brewing Innovation" session featured a look at how some newspaper companies are fostering creativity internally.
Ron Adams, vice president of national digital and print advertising for the Philadelphia Media Network, talked about the company's eight-person "MediaLab."
"It is a way of thinking, not just a good art department," he said.
MediaLab combines technologies to provide campaigns that deliver results by incorporating clients' names throughout the newspaper in a very subtle way that delivers results.
Tribune 365 does not have a formal innovation lab, said Brent Hardesty, the company's vice president of digital sales, marketing and retail sales development. However, Tribune does have eight diverse media companies around the country. Hardesty said these test ideas; successful ones are implemented in other markets.
For example, the Los Angeles Times developed a front-page ad for the 2010 movie "Alice in Wonderland" starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. The idea was costly but it created a big splash and Tribune was able to replicate it in other markets.
Both Hardesty and Adams said their companies have been trying to enter the world of social media. An issue is how to measure it, they noted. MediaLab hired a person dedicate solely to social media.
"Clients overall know they want to be part of it, but don't know exactly how to get there," Adams said.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Newspaper Labs Brewing Innovation session. (NAA Members Only)
Fernando Valdes is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Fernando and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Mai Lyn Ngo
The "Digital and Print Fusion - Driving Cross-Media Integration Across the Value Chain" session featured a panel of four media and advertising executives.
The panel included Lora Anthony of American Airlines, Stan Richards of Richards Group, Antony Young of Optimedia International and Gregory Osberg of Philadelphia Media Network. Moderator was Jason Klein of Newspaper National Network LP.
Panelists all reiterated the same piece of advice for newspapers: Moving into the digital age is crucial for survival. From an advertising perspective, Young said there is the desire to access all consumers on multiple platforms. Getting to consumers on their phones, in print and on the Web is an attractive prospect for many advertising agencies.
Richards said print and digital integration is critical - newspapers with separate departments for print and digital are making a big mistake. Newspapers that refuse to jump on the digital bandwagon will not survive, he said. With the training the younger generation is receiving in print and digital convergence, these "dinosaurs" will be left behind.
Klein steered the conversation to the paywalls that newspapers such as The New York Times have implemented. Three of the four panelists agreed that paywalls are a good thing. Anthony was on the fence, saying that If the paid audience stays, then advertisers will be interested. However, she added that advertisers are worried about accessing customers.
Osberg said that although Philly.com lost a significant number of users, the company was "willing to take the hit to jump into paid content." He noted that no momentum was lost on ads from the digital side.
In closing, Klein asked the panel if 2011 is the year of mobile - or something else. Panelists all offered different answers, saying it is the year of social media, the year of smartphones, the year of integration and the year newspapers take back local commerce.
Mai Lyn Ngo is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Mai Lyn and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Fernando Valdes
The New York Times, the most linked and tweeted source in the world, started a new era today (March 28) by seizing control of its content and managing the way its links are used by implementing a highly anticipated paywall.
Monday morning's keynote speaker Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations at The New York Times Co., said online newspapers are in a new era in which they can't sustain themselves by allowing people to use their content freely with no preconditions and copyright controls. Newspapers have to manage content in order to keep providing it while still remaining successful.
"I would really be careful of the word lockdown - it is not what we are doing," Nisenholtz said. "We don't want to do that. We call this ‘managed links' because we are saying we need some managed process on the way our content is used on the Internet."
With the new paywall, users can read up to 20 articles for free every four weeks. After that, users must pay in order to access content.
The paywall is part of a larger Times strategy to manage its content.
"We are beginning to enforce the idea that our content is not out there to be stolen and to be remixed into a greater experience that can be monetized by Silicon Valley. It's not fair and will not continue," Nisenholtz said.
According to Nisenholtz, a pure link is of no value to The New York Times. It only creates value for those aggregating the links to their own websites.
Nisenholtz said that if links are not managed, in five to 10 years there will be no content providers because they will all be out of business.
He noted that The Times is confident in its paywall and has no plans for moving away from it in the near future.
"We have done a significant amount of research," he said. "We are reasonably sure of ourselves. I don't think any of us is looking at a plan B."
The New York Times has implemented a flexible module that allows for raising the number of free articles users can view in order to generate more advertising revenue. Alternatively, the number can be lowered to gain more subscribers.
Nisenholtz said the paywall gives The Times flexibility with content and tighter controls over copyright. The alternative? The industry "will be nibbled to death."
Fernando Valdes is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Fernando and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Fernando Valdes
The "Hyperlocal Strategies" session looked at how news organizations in Miami and Seattle are incorporating user-generated content and contributions from community correspondents.
Rick Hirsch, managing editor of The Miami Herald, explained how the newspaper collaborates with local bloggers and community correspondents from all over the Miami area. The partnership basically enables the bloggers and correspondents to publish their own content, which is prominently featured on the newspaper's site.
"Having these partners in neighborhoods is bringing us content that we simply are never going to have on our website," he said.
After one year of this hyperlocal strategy, The Herald realized a traffic increase of 500 percent across all sites. Visitors rose from an average of 80,000 in February 2010 to 500,000 a month in 2011.
Hirsch said he hopes that as the community sites get more traffic, advertising revenue will increase as a result of the opportunity for highly targeted advertising.
Mark Briggs, director of digital media for Belo's KING 5-TV in Seattle, has taken a different approach with implementing hyperlocal networks.
"What works in one neighborhood, because of the audience and the people behind it, might not work so well in other neighborhoods," he said as he detailed some of the reasons why hyperlocal networks are hard to implement.
Briggs, author of "Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive," added that "gathering content at this level is difficult, time-consuming and expensive unless the audience is helping them out."
KING-TV teamed up with The Seattle Times, which like The Miami Herald had partnered with community sites, to build and manage a local online advertising network.
They work with community bloggers and other online publications to sell ads on their sites, sharing the resulting revenue. The partnership has helped the community bloggers grow and has increased their viability.
"Our goal is to drive page views, advertising revenue and help them become a sustainable business. And that KING 5 makes money along the way," Briggs said.
Belo has decided to replicate the KING 5 model at its stations around the country within the next year or two.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Hyperlocal Strategies session. (NAA Members Only)
Fernando Valdes is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Fernando and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Stephanie Collins
The "Social Media" session
explored how newspapers have used these platforms to raise traffic flow to news
websites, increase revenue and facilitate sharing of information.
Jodi Gersh, manager of
social media at Gannett Co., said that because many social media tools - especially check-in applications - are
still in the early-adopter phase, a lot of them are more popular with
advertisers and marketers than consumers.
Gersh said 29 percent of consumers
use check-in social media apps to get deals or discounts, but 51 percent have
no interest in checking in at all. "My question is, can we give them a reason
to check in?"
Gersh cited a new app,
"Porkappolis," which will launch soon in Cincinnati. The app features badges,
deals at local businesses and news pertinent to the area.
Deals with local businesses
generate revenue for these kinds of localized apps, Gersh said. Businesses want
to have more of an identity in the community and therefore will pay for a
check-in deal with a local app like Porkappolis.
Randall Keith, director of
digital content for MediaNews Group Inc.'s Bay Area News Group, discussed the
advantages of using Facebook to moderate commentary on news articles, as opposed
to the commenting module common to many news websites.
"The volume of offensive
posts has been skyrocketing for months," Keith said.
Because people can hide
behind anonymous user names, he said, they are more inclined to post offensive
comments. As a result, websites require aggressive policing and moderating.
Keith said that switching to
Facebook for commentary has been an ideal solution. "The use of real names on
Facebook improves the quality of the conversation," he said.
In addition, he said Facebook
offers useful metrics that enable news organizations to follow exactly how many
times and how often their stories are accessed.
Renee Monhollon, director of
new business development and digital sales for Scripps' KNS Media Group, said use
of social media facilitates detailed research that helps news media to tell
advertisers who their audience is, instead of the other way around. By following Facebook user
activity, organizations can identify accurate audience profiles. "We are able
to really break down the conversations that are taking place on Facebook," Monhollon
said. >> WATCH: Renee Monhollon talks about how using social media drives revenue
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Social Media session. (NAA Members Only)
Stephanie Collins is a student at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas. Find out more about Stephanie and other students
reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Aida Ahmed
Panelists in the "Increasing Digital Loyalty and Use" session emphasized that three of the most important factors for a news website are how many visitors it draws, how many times they return and how long they stay on it.
Chris Meares, senior data analyst for Philly.com, said measuring engagement are new buzzwords in the industry. "Page views and unique visitors are becoming less relevant and less valuable," he said.
Meares outlined several areas websites can measure to ensure engagement is actually taking place:
- Click depth index - measures page views per visit
- Visit duration index - measures time on site
- Recency index - measures rate at which visitors return to site
- Loyalty index - measures long-term interaction
- Brand index - measures awareness of brand
- Feedback index/participation index - measures direct feedback
- Interaction index - measures visitor interaction.
Meares recommended using Chartbeat.com to track real-time engagement broken down by a website's sections. He said with Philly.com, he has seen engagement visits rise 12 percent over the last eight months and a 26 percent increase in non-image gallery related page views.
Traci Bauer, managing editor of content and digital platforms at the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, said participation in gaming has increased to the point where people spend hours on games.
"Social gaming is what we define as achievement-based engagement," she said. Players earn points with newspaper puzzles, mobile checkins and community challenges.
Chris Norman, vice president of market relations for McClatchy Interactive, talked about the company's "Project Aurora" for the Web. McClatchy drew on information in the "Teens Know What They Want From Online News: Do You?" study from the NAA Foundation and Media Management Center for the project.
Norman listed several lessons he learned from the project:
- Don't overload consumers.
- Beware of scrolling.
- Get rid of clutter.
- Use fewer stories, words and photos.
- Incorporate brief, understandable overviews (similar to those of TV and radio).
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Increasing Digital Loyalty & Use session. (NAA Members Only)
Aida Ahmed is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Aida and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Lisa Collins
The "Success in Digital Targeting" session revealed that branded media sites have multiple audiences with different goals and that content should be purposed for each user's behavior.
Bill Adee, vice president of digital development and operation for the Chicago Tribune Media Group, defined the difference between a "brand user" and a "search user" and how both should be served digital content. A brand user peruses the outlet on a regular basis, while the search user actively seeks information. Advertisements and contents should be displayed differently in order to reach these two different readers.
Adee said the Chicago Tribune uses metrics to determine the actual value of content, which helps the company allocate resources based on what is known about the worth of a story. Digital customization has led to a 37 percent increase in page views per visit.
Rochelle Sanchirico, director of digital marketing at The Washington Post, has grown the Post's social media marketing department from a one-person show to a fully developed team.
The Washington Post uses various social media platforms to build audience. Sanchirico acknowledged that different platforms require different tones, as each has a different type of user and a different method of interaction.
The Post optimizes every interaction with readers, down to ensuring that comments displayed are by users considered to be reputable on the subjects on which they are commenting.
The Washington Post was the first media company to partner with Twitter on a promotional trend. The newspaper owned the hashtag #election during 2010 midterm election coverage and saw 2.5 times the average referrals to its site.
Dan Shorter, vice president of digital media at The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group, let attendees in on a service called Outbrain that he said will increase audiences and profits for free.
Outbrain is a recommendation tool that suggests relevant links to readers alongside content. It can link to content on the same site as well as to content across the Web. Shorter said the service has increased traffic to the group's own stories by 7 percent.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Success in Digital Targeting session. (NAA Members Only)
Lisa Collins is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Lisa and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Lisa Collins
Brian Monahan, managing partner of IPG Emerging Media Lab, shared insights about consumer behavior, new technologies and how publishers can better explore the industry's potential in the "Future of Advertising" session.
"The pace of change is only accelerating. There is no end in sight," he said.
Media behavior is changing rapidly and consumers are moving toward "total mediation," meaning that mobile usage throughout the day is becoming nearly constant.
"We have a joke in the lab. If the Rotarians eradicated polio, Silicon Valley has eradicated boredom. There are no dead zones in your life," said Monahan, former head of social media at IPG's Universal McCann.
This constant access to information has dramatically changed the purchase decision-making process. The average number of sources consulted before buying has drastically increased, even for low-involvement purchases such as groceries.
This shift in how people use technology means a change in how they want to interact with advertising. Because they access technology to get what they want when they want it, the interruptive ad unit only gets in the way.
The percentage of brands consumers view as trustworthy dropped by 52 percent between 1997 and 2006, according to a Young & Rubicam study published in "The Brand Bubble: The Looming Crisis in Brand Value and How to Avoid It" by John Gerzema and Ed LeBar. Monahan said he believes this is because brands annoy their consumers.
The model of advertising budget allocation has traditionally revolved around repetition to reach an effective frequency. As media have fragmented, consumers are being repeatedly exposed to messages. As a result, brands make less of an impact.
Monahan said that in 2009, the increasing popularity of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter revolutionized the way people connect with each other. In 2010, people rather than places became digitized as users started checking in and sharing locations. The year 2011, Monahan said, will be when things themselves go digital.
And mobile is no longer a trend, Monahan said. More smartphones were shipped in the last year than PCs.
"It is becoming the more prevalent screen," he said.
The future is in the integration of social media, location-based technology and mobile technology: "SoLoMo."
"You can't go in to a hipster bar in LA without meeting some bright young kid who's got a startup having to do with SoLoMo," Monahan said.
Another trend he mentioned is "gameification," meaning that games are no longer just for kids. Marketers take gaming principles, such as earning currency, and integrate them into brand experience.
Monahan said he sees spending interest moving toward local. However, the definition is changing. Local marketing used to be associated with physical household ZIP codes. With constant GPS transmission and the formation of virtual neighborhoods, the idea of targeting neighborhoods has changed.
Marketers are constantly searching for the influencers in a neighborhood, he said.
"Well, I think the newspaper has the influencers. They're the talent. They're the people you have to read every morning."
Publishers are getting smarter about how to associate brand messages with key influencers, he said.
Monahan concluded the session with four requests for the newspaper industry:
- Sell increased market share.
- Develop new commercial metrics.
- Lock arms to scale.
- Change the story.
His last request concerned an attitude shift. He urged publishers to promote their status as trusted media brands to advertisers and unlock the potential of the most influential people in communication.
Lisa Collins is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Lisa and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Fernando Valdes
Advertisers urged newspapers not to lose focus on print in this digital age during the "Advertising Customer Perspectives" session.
Chris Daly, vice president media-ROP/inserts for Macy's, said that contrary to what was said in a previous session, print is not dead and will not go away in the next 10 years.
Newspapers should listen to consumers and let them be the ones to say what they want from newspaper products, said John Dennis, senior media operations manager at J.C. Penney.
Dennis said news consumption and readership in general have never been as high as they are today. There are so many different ways to get the news that readers have diversified and now expect more out of newspapers.
"We know that there is an audience we can tap into," he said. "The question is, what do they want?"
Many print consumers now go to tablets, mobile and other digital outlets for news. The challenge for newspapers is to find out where they went, figure out how to reach them and give them what they want.
Andrea Katishitas, vice president/associate account director for Zenith Media, said the key is customizing news to readers' preferences. Consumers today look for a newspaper-like experience on their mobile and tablet devices.
"A phone is a daily newspaper; an iPad is a Sunday newspaper. As an advertiser, this is the kind of experience we are trying to replicate," Katishitas said.
"Content is great," he added, "but it is the experience that the user has interacting with such devices that makes them so appealing."
If newspapers and advertisers can find where customers are going, Dennis said, then they will be able to create cost-effective ways to reach customers and grow together.
Newspapers and advertisers are in this together; the bottom line is that advertisers want newspapers to succeed, Dennis said. Newspaper success allows advertisers to succeed. Together, they can take newspapers to the next level.
Katishitas also emphasized that print is not dead. "There will be a print product in 10 years," he said. "What it will be or where it is going to go, I have no idea."
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Advertising Customer Perspectives session. (NAA Members Only)
Fernando Valdes is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Fernando and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here
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By Kassi Schmitt
Connecting with younger readers today continues to be an ongoing struggle for the newspaper industry.
According to Northwestern University Assistant Professor Rachel Davis Mersey and "Younger Thinking" blogger Christopher Sopher, newspapers must focus on engaging young readers in new and creative ways.
Mersey shared findings from "Common Threads: Linking NAA Foundation Research to Today's Young Media Consumers," a review of 14 research studies conducted from 2000 to 2010. She said newspapers should stop looking at age groups of consumers and start looking instead at six life stages:
- Elementary school - pre-K-grade 5
- Middle school - grades 6-8
- High school - grades 9-12
- Living alone or with roommates
- Living with a spouse/partner
- Living with children
Mersey said newspapers should target these groups with separate, and very different, approaches. For example, cultural activities are of interest to young adults living alone or with a roommate. RedEye, a free daily tabloid and website published by the Chicago Tribune, appeals to that group with coverage of pop culture, sports and local restaurants.
"Tone and connection and a little bit of edge is really what's working with this audience," Mersey said.
Sopher, a senior at the University of North Carolina, said the younger generation does not consume news in the same way as young people did in the past. Instead, he classified these readers as "news grazers."
"The habit [news consumption] is not as regular anymore," Sopher said. "The normal daily news habit is broken up, so now grazing is the perfect way to describe it."
Sopher explained how there is so much information available to readers that it can be overwhelming and incredibly difficult to filter. He advised newspapers to take on a "funneling" role to help control the flow of information and help regulate what readers take in.
He also advised newspapers to start developing reference points. These are places where young readers can go to figure out what the overall big picture of an issue is or to obtain more background information, a concept similar to Wikipedia. In an age when people are so busy, some feel left behind and confused after missing a day or two of news coverage. Sopher said a reference point is a great way to keep readers up to speed.
Both Sopher and Mersey emphasized that general-circulation publications should no longer take the "one size fits all" approach. Rather, newspapers should target specific groups to be successful in the media world today.
"The big focus here is that we can reach young people - we just need to break it down," Sopher said.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Reaching Young Readers session. (NAA Members Only)
Kassi Schmitt is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Kassi and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By E'Lyn Taylor
The "Targeting Small Businesses" session focused on today's hyperlocal world.
Tim Condon, director of new ventures/digital for The Washington Post, talked about "Service Alley," a new program that helps consumers in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., to find local home service providers such as painters, contractors and housecleaners.
Don't feel too confident about what Service Alley suggests? There's a solution for that. Through Facebook, users can see ratings and/or comments about Service Alley providers.
Media General Inc.'s approach is to create "accountability and a sense of urgency" with the sales staff, said Andy Lobred, vice president of sales and marketing. "We're surrounding ourselves with people who want to win," he said.
A slight PowerPoint glitch didn't faze Steve Bernard, senior vice president of advertising for The McClatchy Co. "This proves my point of print products still being alive," he said.
Bernard said McClatchy still sticks with the " '80s tradition" of print-and-deliver to attract new customers, distributing 500,000,000 pieces annually.
"Clipping coupons is fashionable," he said.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Targeting Small Businesses session. (NAA Members Only)
E'Lyn Taylor is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about E'Lyn and other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Stephanie Collins
Tablets have already created the beginnings of an entirely new market, audience and form of media consumption. Now, the challenge for the media is to provide content for tablets in ways that make the most sense in each of these areas.
The "Tablet Strategies" session addressed all of these issues, with speakers representing different philosophies and opinions on the subject.
Michael Romaner, president of Morris DigitalWorks, said he thinks the best approach for a newspaper tablet app is what he called the "replica plus strategy" - an app that replicates the print edition and offers a few added interactive features.
Why is the replica strategy so important? Even in the electronic age, people appreciate curation, or having their news organized by importance rather than by category, just as it is in a print newspaper, Romaner said.
Doug Bennett, president of Freedom Interactive, disagreed with that approach. "We're focusing on an audience, and what the audience wants. Not what we are used to doing," he said.
Instead, Bennett said media should be after a "purple cow," or something entirely new and different that will appeal to the tablet audience.
The people who consume news and information on tablets as opposed to traditional print newspapers have different interests, according to Bennett, which is why a replica strategy would not appeal to tablet app users.
In fact, he said, "It is our belief that the true-blue print reader will be disappointed in this format."
Bill Tallent, CEO of Mercury Intermedia, said that no matter what the format is, if an app does not have a few key components it will not be successful regardless of the brand.
These components include having an exceptional user interface, being quick and responsive, containing video and photographs, and having social media-sharing capabilities.
Traditional computers are increasingly used for content creation, Tallent said, while "touch computers," or tablets, will be used for content consumption.
Because news consumption is something people do on a daily basis, he added, they want it to be efficient.
"Speed is a premium with these users," he said.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Tablet Strategies session. (NAA Members Only)
>> For more complete coverage read Tablets Inspire a Diversity of Strategies for Newspapers. (NAA Members Only)
Stephanie Collins is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Stephanie and the other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Andy Garcia
Smartphone technology has newspapers trying to push their mobile presence, but experts warned against playing the field without having a game plan.
In the "Mobile Innovations" session, Will Sullivan of journerdism.com said that well-developed mobile applications get people excited and steer them toward wanting to create their own apps. With the dramatic loss of retained users for most apps, developing a strong mobile presence takes thought.
Sullivan said potential apps should use "APPI":
- Always On
- Personal
- Purchasable
- Impulsive
Sullivan also warned that those interested in apps should analyze whether they really need one. With 141.1 million mobile Internet users in the U.S., it might be hard to ignore the temptation to create an app. However, rushing into the game may have serious consequences.
Jason Fulmines of Gannett Co. cited USA TODAY's mobile app as having had problems in the past. During coverage of the 2009 emergency plane landing in New York's Hudson River, USA TODAY's app errors prevented a story on the subject from going to the top of the app's page (a story on Denny's free breakfast took precedence).
Fulmines, however, said he takes comfort in this statement by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman: "If you're not somewhat embarrassed by your 1.0 product launch, then you've released too late."
With new innovations in technology, there will be more ways to expand upon mobile use. Andy Vogel of Los Angeles Times Media Group, said new trends will continue to advance media. He suggested that HTML5 will be pitted against downloadable apps in the near future, and that people will be able to use their phones for daily fiscal transactions.
Looking forward to the future, Vogel said he thinks it is going to be a great decade for mobile technology.
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Mobile Innovations session. (NAA Members Only)
Andy Garcia is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Andy and the other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Kassi Schmitt
The new newspaper model must become digital first and print last.
That was the overarching message that John Paton, CEO of Journal Register Co., stressed in the "Newspapers - A Path Forward" session.
Both Paton and fellow panelist Clark Gilbert, president and CEO of Deseret News Publishing, said newspapers must face the reality that the economics of the newspaper industry have changed.
"The newspaper model is broken and can't be fixed," Paton said. "If you don't believe this, then you have the same definition of winning as Charlie Sheen."
Gilbert said that newspapers need a new content strategy. In order to redirect the Deseret News, he focused on creating a strong digital division by immersing the publication with a series of nontraditional media employees. Gilbert also combined the newsroom with TV, developed a large pool of editorial contributors and focused on lowering costs.
"If you don't dramatically lower the cost, you can't compete," he said.
Paton said that unless newspapers change now, they will disappear in 10 years.
"There is no way you can tweak the business model," he said. "You must change the business model completely if you want to survive."
Paton used Twitter to outline his top 10 list on how to transform newspapers today.
"Stop listening to print people and put the digital people in charge of everything," one of Paton's tweets read.
He stressed the importance of putting people who really understand the digital media world in charge of the business.
"It is the business and the only part that is growing," he said.
For example, Paton bought his reporters 1,000 Flip cameras. In just six weeks, the video content paid for itself.
Although both Paton and Gilbert both said they have made progress on new digital business models, they believe they have only scratched the surface and will continue to try innovative things.
"There is no road map for this," Paton said. "Harness the power of your employees and create a culture where they are empowered to experiment."
>> WATCH: Full video of Newspapers--A Path Forward
Kassi Schmitt is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Kassi and the other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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By Aida Ahmed
Panelists in the Social Commerce breakout session all agreed: There is still time for newspapers to get in on money-making daily deals.
Newspapers are competing in a new arena of advertising with online coupons, according to Mike Coleman, vice president of digital media at The Arizona Republic.
The Phoenix-based daily created its "Deal Chicken" product in-house in June 2010. Similar to Groupon, Deal Chicken offers one deal every day to 58,000 e-mail subscribers. Without segmenting by geography or location, the newspaper found that 65 percent of subscribers are female.
Coleman said a good day of deals brings in about $10,000, which is split equally with the merchant. A great day brings in up to $100,000. Deal Chicken is a strong competitor, coming in at number three in its market.
"We think it really stands out in our market," Coleman said. "There is probably room for deal sites in a given market, but there's a real danger of becoming predictable and boring. List size and quality is really important."
In an effort to do something a little different, the St. Petersburg Times created the "Things to Do" app last spring with local entertainment and insider tips.
"We realized there was a gap in the mobile arena," said Maryann Balbo, digital sales manager at the paper. "We decided to build advertising around the app."
Users can download the free app and search for things to do based on current location or by entering ZIP codes. When users "favorite" a store or restaurant, they receive coupons through phone notifications.
"We have built this around content that only a local staff can make," Balbo said. "We see the value of print advertising. It's a quality audience and it works."
James Calloway, vice president of strategic development at McClatchy Interactive, discussed his company's partnership with Groupon on a "Find and Save" program.
The site primarily uses traffic play, relying on exclusive deals from Groupon to attract visitors. Calloway said McClatchy develops an audience by focusing on marketing.
"There are things you can do to drive up revenue that are fairly low cost," he said. "Marketing is critical."
>> View and download speaker presentations from the Social Commerce session. (NAA Members Only)
Aida Ahmed is a student at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Find out more about Aida and the other students reporting live from NAA's mediaXchange here.
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